Massachusetts
WEYMOUTH NEWS
Towns now owns base
By Jeanne M. Rideout / jrideout@cnc.com
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Navy transfers 550 acres of former air base back to three towns
History was made on Thursday, May 15, as the United States Government
returned the first portion of the former South Weymouth Naval Air
Station to Weymouth, Rockland, and Abington.
The ink on this page in history would not have been penned without the
skill and determination of US Congressman William Delahunt, according to
John W. Rogers, interim executive director of the South Shore Tri-Town
Development Corporation, the local agency in charge of base
redevelopment. Rogers also serves as chairman of the corporation's board
of directors.
Rogers believes that the Navy, impatient with the slow pace of
redevelopment, would have followed through with last fall's threat to
auction off the former air base, if not for Delahunt.
"If not for Congressman Delahunt's intercession last fall, the base
would have been long gone," Rogers said. "Congressman Delahunt met with
the secretary of the Navy and worked out an agreement for us to get the
land at no cost if we met the milestones in that agreement. That is why
we got the land."
The 1,450-acre site was purchased by the Navy in the 1940s and 1950s,
with the intent of creating a blimp base. History has glossed over the
vital role that blimps and their valiant pilots played in the early days
of World War II. Recognized by the military as a powerful deterrent to
hostile submarines, blimps were deemed so critical to shipping along the
east coast that the Department of Defense ordered the $6 million
construction of the South Weymouth Naval Air Station to accommodate the
lighter than air craft. As the decades rolled by, the role played by the
South Weymouth base changed with the times, until declared obsolete.
SOWEY served as an active military base until 1996, when it was deemed
surplus by the Department of Defense as part of the Base Realignment and
Closure Act (BRAC) passed by Congress.
This article can be viewed at:
http://www.townonline.com/weymouth/news/local_regional/wey_newwnjeannasbasetransfer05212003.htm
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